Together since we started dating on January 17, 1993. Engaged December 17, 1993.Married June 17, 1995.Been married ever since. Joint accounts, checking/saving/etc. individual retirement accounts with the other spouse designated as primary beneficiary, kids as contingent co-beneficiaries

Sometimes we work on it together better than other times where I tend to take on more of the responsibility.

Being married allowed me to save some money on things like food, and it allowed me to buy a house as we could combine our incomes (along with the fact that my wife wasn't making a poverty First Officers wage at a regional airline at the time).

Things really got advantageous when we had kids though. That's where being married and on the same page financially kicks into overdrive. I think we've made lots more money by having me stay home while my wife started a business. That's a $2000 a month savings in childcare. Massive food savings, home and car maintenance (I do it myself) and tons of other things.

You really start to become a corporation when you're married with kids and there has to be divisions of labor. That's where I think it's most advantageous to be married.

Married for almost 7 years now, two kids, 4 year old girl, 2 year old boy and baby number 3 is due on June 2nd. Our finances are combined and we meet every other Friday night when I get paid to review our budget. Friday night budget parties...this is what my life has come to.

Your avatar says you are in Kingston. Nice small city, not too cold, and university/college cities tend to have lots of cheap interesting activities going on. You have Queen's and St. Lawrence College, check out what they have on for fun/cheap date nights. One of my best concert nights out was Jim Cuddy at St. Lawrence's Cornwall campus - small venue, free parking, tickets were not too expensive. And please do not forget date nights, they remind couples that the marriage comes ahead of the kids.

Have two stepsons, 21 yr old and 18 yr old...child support, college support, and ex wife involvement will end in 2017 :)

Joint accounts...I really thought I would keep everything separate since I came in with a lot more money in investment accounts/savings account. I like having the joint accounts :) DH is 50 and I am 39...will be able to retire in 10 years with a paid off house and will be selling that to move to the Southwest.

SmilingBob

Married for 5 years, together for 7. We have 3 young children, including an infant and toddler. We been busy. :)

Previous divorce destroyed my stache and I found myself starting over at age 38 (at least there were no kids, thank God). Don't do divorce if you do not have to, it really sucks. Mrs. SmilingBob is a real keeper though, we are a great team and are all joint accounts (no dutch here), debt free except for the mortgage.

Getting married in 12 days. Whew. Have already combined finances and budget together.

Congratulations! And best wishes!

My husband and I started dating in college (he was 19, I was 20). We got married four years later and just celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary. We had good examples from both sets of parents about the importance of saving early and often. Our first year of marriage, we saved my whole salary (about 50% of our combined income). We've added a kid, who keeps growing out of her shoes and has reached the age (12) where all her pant legs are suddenly too short. Fortunately, it's almost shorts weather. :)

Financial pros mostly come from living together (e.g. sharing housing costs, cooking for 2) not from marriage itself. Marriage itself...well, we could both go on each other's insurance now. And my parents give nice anniversary presents (too bad we didn't marry 10 years ago like my siblings). But for the most part we're on the same page financially, otherwise it might be a negative.

Married 30 years in a few months- started out together with nothing but dreams and many have come true!Always had only one scoreboard. For a while, I was the "featured running back" and rushed for the most yards.That flipped a decade ago when she became the major contributor and I became more choosy over how I wanted to spend my professional time. Come to discover I don't suffer fools well, don't like managing other people and have a maverick mentality when viewed through the corporate prism. I only work on projects where the people are great and the tasks interesting to me. I like be able to say "No, I am going to have to pass on that project".Happily my wifes career track blossomed, even during the tumultuous last decade, and she has a big interesting executive position that she loves. Not bad for the single mom without a BA I started dating 32 years ago.

We kinda contrast in our ways... she's a bit of a planner/worry wort... while i'm more of a go-with-the-flow, no worries guy. She has said I've 'chilled' her out a bit and she made me much more responsible. So we work well together :)

this is me exactly! I'm the neurotic one, he's the one who would forget to pay bills if he were still in charge of them :) it works really well for us too. I like having everything under control, but sometimes I really need someone to talk me off a ledge and remind me that whatever I'm stressed about is NOT the end of the world.

Advantages aside from the economies of a household of two are mostly structural in the law, but they're more extensive than most people think about: my much better insurance through work (cheaper by far for me to insure us both and for us to meet the max out of pocket than for him to pay his premiums through work...), my pension, which will include health care coverage for us both (he has a pension, but it doesn't include health), and the general ability to take care of "stuff" however conveniences us most.

For example, we bought an empty parcel next to our property a couple of years ago, and it's still in my name only because I was able to take time away from work to close, just for example. If something happens to me, it will go to him without probate, even if I didn't have a will (which I do).

Also, our vehicles are in various names, depending on who could get to the courthouse at the time of purchase. Ironically, I think he owns my daily driver, but I own a large truck and a trailer that I cannot easily drive (not at all in combination and the truck alone with difficulty and a pillow behind my back).

Single, although I get told I am too nice a lot, so I assume I'm fugly...

Maybe not. I was really nice to girls when I was single. Looking back I think it came off as kinda needy or desperate, even though I was just trying to be nice. People lose interest if something appears too easy to get.

In a long term relationship (3 years this coming July). The partner isn't fully on board with Mustachianism yet, but the important thing is, he respects my values and the independent, anti-consumerist lifestyle I'm trying to lead. It's a work in progress. I could learn more from him about being more generous and happier in the moment.

I lived with my girlfriend when I first joined the forums, but moved out last Oct.(We are still good friends, and also business partners)

Dating again - my recent blog post summary of the idea of early retirement was largely written for a particular woman I've been seeing. I managed to work the whole MMM/ERE thing into conversation on my first date with another woman, and emailed it to her the next day.

She responded with follow-up questions on home ownership and raising children - i.e. taking it seriously, and trying to figure out how to integrate the idea with her other life plans.A couple days later the first woman informed me she had just paid the last of her student loans in full. I said "congratulations... interesting timing. Coincidence?" to which she responded "not coincidence :)"

In other words, if either one of these works out long term, I've got them on board already :) :) :) :)I think I'm going to send that blog post to every prospective new date, until I'm married.

Dating a wonderful woman and will be moving into the place she just bought this weekend (eek!). Very excited. I learned of MMM a couple months after we started dating and although she was skeptical at first, she's coming around! Despite that, she is more frugal than I am and makes a good bit more than I do.

Her skepticism came from my spreadsheets (I'm a total nerd for spreadsheets--I wouldn't say she dislikes my spreadsheets but I think at times it might get a bit tedious) not accounting for "life"--the unexpected things. But I had an "Incidentals" category! And I built in buffers to every category! Bah. Anyway, whether she believes right now that we will be able to FIRE or not doesn't really matter because we're both reducing spending and increasing saving.

At the risk of having fire and brimstone thrown at me, I suggest that if being married is better than being single, for a MMM lifestyle, then polygamous marriage should be better still.

Communal living is certainly very mustachian. I mean, you don't have to have a sexual relationship with all the people in the commune, but platonic love would go far.

Hey now, I am married and we do have a roommate. You just need the right spouse to go along with the crazy. :PI save a lot of money having two roommates, that's for sure. A lot easier to do this when not married ;)

Not to come in and poll nitpick, but I'm gonna come in and poll nitpick. It's the finest MMM Forum tradition after all.

What's the point of creating a demographic poll with some arbitrary limitation of the widely-understood set of the possible responses? I am neither "just dating" someone nor engaged to them. These random subsets of the possible response set make it hard to draw any conclusion from the data.

Married. Separate finances (with a contract). We split costs evenly. We are both (too?) frugal. Expenses in Europe for us both were less than 1500 eur month (with a 500 eur/month travel budget). In US, we spend less than 1000 dollar/month (south). Technically, we could stop working, but we both enjoy what we do. We are 28 and 30.

Not to come in and poll nitpick, but I'm gonna come in and poll nitpick. It's the finest MMM Forum tradition after all.

What's the point of creating a demographic poll with some arbitrary limitation of the widely-understood set of the possible responses? I am neither "just dating" someone nor engaged to them. These random subsets of the possible response set make it hard to draw any conclusion from the data.

Not to come in and poll nitpick, but I'm gonna come in and poll nitpick. It's the finest MMM Forum tradition after all.

What's the point of creating a demographic poll with some arbitrary limitation of the widely-understood set of the possible responses? I am neither "just dating" someone nor engaged to them. These random subsets of the possible response set make it hard to draw any conclusion from the data.

I put single because I expect my divorce to be final within the next week or two. My soon to be ex is much more frugal (to the point of being cheap) than I am. My goal is to still enjoy things I like doing, but to reduce truly wasteful spending and hopefully be secure in the future.

Not to come in and poll nitpick, but I'm gonna come in and poll nitpick. It's the finest MMM Forum tradition after all.

What's the point of creating a demographic poll with some arbitrary limitation of the widely-understood set of the possible responses? I am neither "just dating" someone nor engaged to them. These random subsets of the possible response set make it hard to draw any conclusion from the data.

Yup. "Dating" is like a 30k-150k category in an income poll.

]

What do you guys suggest to improve it? Not trying to be confrontational but my imagination is not coming up with anything useful.

Spartana

Previously married for 17 years (together for 20) now divorced several years. Currently not dating as I recently ended a fairly long term relationship with a guy who was not on the same page as me in regards to ER, travel, living situation. I'm already retired and he plans to work another 20 plus years until he's 65 or so. I want to travel longer term NOW, he wants to never travel other than a 2 week vacation once each year. He wants to continue living in SoCal and I don't. But otherwise we were very compatible. He was very non-spendy and just wanted to surf and play beach volleyball like me all day :-)!

As far as is it easier to attain FI/RE with a spouse? ....well that depends on the spouse. Ex-DH and I were both on the exact same page financially - both no debt, live far below our means, live small and save big kinds of people and we were able to get pretty far ahead on fairly low pay. So it would be much easier with a spouse like than then a spendthrift spouse - one who was into a more upscale, spendy lifestyle - or if you have kids. While as a single person you also have options to save money, such as how and where you live (roomies in cheap shared digs for instance), but I think it can be harder to save overall as a single rather than as a couple who both work and split costs. For example hubby and I could live in a small one bedroom place and split expenses whereas with a roommate we'd need a two bedroom place at a greater expense. Same with food costs and investment options. More money to pool as a couple for greater investment growth.

Single and will probably stay that way- dating prospects here are terrible.

It's easier to save with dual incomes, of course, as long as your significant other is somewhat frugal, or open to learning how to be. I've dated a few irredeemable spendthrifts in my time, and could only imagine how bad my financial situation would be now if I had actually married one of them.

Married for almost 2 years, been together almost 4. Joint everything since 6 months before we got married, she's an accountant and handles virtually all the finances. I do the maintenance, she does the books. Works incredibly well.